Drownings (part six) His partner freed a chair and began a conversation. “Ma’am, is Dennis available? Ah. I’ve only got a scribble on my paper...Dustin? Oh, likely not. Julia from Bitterroot. Well... Yes, do. Have him ring this number. Terrible.” The word an empathetic echo. Faia lowered her voice. “I have someone who’s seen the body, whom Mr. Herbertson may wish to speak to.”

Chum Will you be my chum Sink with me under the bubbling swell Or take your hacksaw to the cable Release the weight of me   that binds you Still We are side by side Keep the pear tree, lose the partridge Keep the gold rings, sack the servants Forecast for your future harvest Have a friend for every purpose Rarely do we do ourselves that credit…

All the Latest from Torsade! Two episodes of "Fellyans", introducing a neighbor's troubled household. A Bedlam, with reason for a long drive and private talk. An Eight poem, from the Eightfold Path arc. My Blog Week: January 12 to January 18 Story: Fellyans (part five) January 13 Story: Fellyans (part six) January 15 All Bedlam Courses Past (part one hundred eighty-six)

Drownings (part five) Mrs. Blaney, her hair in barrettes, and not one to rise from her chair, gave McAlley the downturned mouth of prior knowledge—the expectation this Mr. Swan would possess his share of it, and that there was little to be done. “There’s just been a call in, about another. Was that coincidence?” McAlley took a seat. “You’ve only yet spoken over the phone...”

The City From a tower eye, an orange-red van Bread loaf squat Windscreen a picture, the day’s spattering weather Wiped in an arc to mimic the arena’s design That municipal failure condemning the horizon The van amid trucks that glitter with a gun-barrel coat, hundreds of white sedans bought off the lot, passes over the concrete stanchions A box A carpet on the floor in a sprawl…

Drownings (part four) Faia strode next to him, both aware of the woman’s complaint. “I swear to god! Me! I am not in this,” she was saying, and the tiny dink that followed was the card, binned. They descended to the water, cleared a gap baffled by rolls of grey rubber—and they were afloat. Half of the walkway seemed forbidden; the allowed parts doglegged segment to segment, cordoned with moveable fences painted yellow.

The Tick of a Second Hand   The landing gear came down And a long becalming slick Smothered the water in a broadening swath that rose at the interstice of sun and s…

blindingly who looked back in hindsight and found the vista blank unable to imagine bending time to shop the 1960s Christmas Come a better-raised child, bright to the dawn of December 31, 1999 The imperatives to stray a little farther on or in memory alone, in mind Go back, in a cower from the provocateur’s whip Wait for an iceberg, dressed to the nines…

The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part eighty-three) Draw up your fellows, I said to it. That much you can do. Mornings I went to that spot in my garden, as every sunrise brought change. I left my doorstone still braiding my hair, and was blundered against by Moth. “What!” Nothing. He vanished into the barn, keeping a holy silence, frightened at the emergence of two new Seeds.

Drownings (part three) McAlley tested the integrity of the earth, found the river's edge would hold, stooped a second time. The posture reminded him. “See this, Faia. ID, Bitterroot Cooperative. What sort of place, do you suppose?” “Hiking gear? Herbals...? Her guesses were bored. He could sense her chin above his shoulder, her voice immediate to his ear. “Carmadge, it says.

Drownings (part two) The bank along the riverwalk was reinforced with cemetery detritus, gravestones slabbed together. Thrusting from sludge you saw a brass orb or the planes of an obelisk, the very tip of a wing. It had been decided the dead must go, unentitled to occupy the city’s treed spaces. Picnic shelters, stands for sports, fields for sports, belonged. The ancient and forgotten did not.

Drownings (part one) While the world was buying nothing, and working at nothing, the city underwent its heart-rot. Apartment houses ceased to cohere. Not in respect of fellowship, the residents still and always pleased to avoid each other. But the bricks and beams themselves, consequent to a spiraling, so many lines of decay caught as arms of the vortex, drawn to a common center.

Are You Haunted (part twenty-six) He was in the middle this time, a paper bag in one hand, his other on an ice chest, steadying it over his knees and Isobel’s. “You go out the back, and take your things.” Mrs. Lessing, loud at him, when Summers and Connolly stood to go. Isobel had tapped Powell’s arm. “Let’s see what she means.

Are You Haunted (part twenty-five) Mrs. Lessing sat on a piano bench. The piano was there, too, in a corner of the dining room. Powell felt a look askance tighten his neck, but held to the study of his dinner roll, his hand sopping gravy. Manners let you do that, didn’t they? The bench was lower than Mrs. Drybrook’s chair. Mrs.

Are You Haunted (part twenty-four) Tovey was slick and aromatic as the day before. He wore the same suit. He augmented his remark with a pinkie, spat tobacco into his teacup, spread himself across the middle of the settee—and having used his grandmother’s china for a spittoon, placed the cup and contents on her cushion. He made no room for Powell, who was tempted to say, “Scoot over, Dennis.”

Chapter Four An Odd Man Out (part thirty-two) He knew Claudie wrote in her notebooks, in the pink gingham room, upstairs. A sensible, a naturally-fitting person, married four years... Would have asked his wife at some point, “Do you have a job?” He was gone to his own job most days. Computers were surging; so much new work, by 1994, being created because of them.

The Totem-Maker Chapter Nine The Recalcitrant One (part eighty-two) I had heard the story of the Grandmother Oak, but I had not seen this proof. “The seed may sprout one day,” he said. I don’t know why, when he looked at me, I foresaw my own death in this word. He moved to his wagon, and I followed. He drew out a cap.

Are You Haunted (part twenty-three) She wore a black cardigan and a floral shift. These things, to Powell’s eyes, were not dress-up clothes. She had chosen from a kind of sympathy, he wished to believe it… That Mrs. Drybrook had thought of how poor her lunch guest was. Her inches bowed from the neck, a tall body crooked with age, buttressed by the arms of a caretaker—or the trembling in her knees might have rocked her off her feet.

The Culture We are important Our three-letter alphabet constructs our limited language The gravitational center draws our attention-seeking message The message is I am important Yet you don’t know me On an oxbow the current passes A fallen tree, submerged At a cross-angle, green, murky brown depths, hot from the sun The surface still, gnats rise Kingfishers, blackbirds, bank swallows…

Are You Haunted (part twenty-two) They had pulled into the parking lot of a drugstore, BONHOF’S on the glass in big gold script. Guy had showed Powell four fingers, counting off a list. “...you payin attention? Mrs. Drybrook wants to have a look at you in person. I got no comment on that.” But alone with a little cash to spend, Powell was taking his ease.